Schoolboy creates winning Tour de France bicycle rack

A competition run by architects, in which Yorkshire schoolchildren were asked to design a bike rack commemorating the start of a famous cycling race in the county, has been won by a boy from a Harrogate junior school.

The winning design was thought to have best answered the demands of the brief, which asked the children to create something that captured both the excitement surrounding the 2014 ‘Grand Départ’ of the Tour de France and the essence of Yorkshire itself.

As part of the competition, volunteers from the North Yorkshire Society of Architects visited primary schools and held design workshops for more than 600 children. The winning design, which was created by 10-year-old Will Hunt of Harrogate’s Ashville College, beat 261 entries from schoolchildren across the county.

Hunt’s bike rack has a rear panel shaped to resemble the hilly profile map of the first stage of the Tour, which covers undulating terrain between Leeds and Harrogate. It will be manufactured by the Yorkshire firm that produced the 2012 Olympic Cauldron.

While Cheshire will not see a visit from the Tour de France this year, cycling is on the rise in the county, with Chester council offering free cycle stands for local organisations. The move is intended to encourage people to commute by bike and should enable organisations to lower their carbon footprints.

Businesses that want to improve their green credentials by installing bicycle parking areas and showers might consider building new facilities or adapting parts of an existing building. Contacting reputable architects in Chester is the best way to come up with a solution that works.